Volunteers are the backbone of Special Olympics Pennsylvania. Without our volunteers, we’d never be able to provide competition, leadership, health and so many other opportunities to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities throughout Pennsylvania.
Congratulations to Sean Loner, Lycoming County, for being named our Volunteer of the Month for November 2023!
Sean is no stranger to Special Olympics Pennsylvania. Since Sean was 8 years old, he’s volunteered with his family to provide a number of different sports to Lycoming County. Sean has coached basketball, long distance running and walking (LDR/W), bowling, snowshoeing and athletics. As a Unified Partner, he’s participated in bowling and LDR/W.
We sat down with Sean to learn more about his time as a Unified Partner and what it means to be a member of the Unified generation. Congratulations, Sean, on this well-deserved award!
My dad started participating in Special Olympics Pennsylvania when we were younger, and it became a family thing. He was the training coordinator, so I would just go to practices with my dad and help out. I then started as a Unified Partner in high school on the LDR/W team. After that, I started coaching and I’m still a Unified Partner!
I started [helping my dad] at 8 years old, so that would be I’ve been volunteer for 28 years. Since becoming a Unified Partner, I’ve volunteered for 22 years.
Being a Unified Partner, even after high school, was just a different approach. You have personal interactions with athletes as a Unified Partner. As a coach, it’s fun to go places, see people and interact. There’s just a different experience, a different take, as a Unified Partner that as a coach you don’t get. Being a Unified Partner is so great and there’s always opportunities in your high school programs. When you create equal opportunity, there are so many chances to become friends.
Because Lycoming is a smaller county, I know all of the athletes. Most of our athletes do multiple sports. So, when an athlete goes from not being able to walk 100 meters to walking or running 1500s and setting personal records, you want to stick around for as long as you can.
Everybody thinks it’s always about the medals, but it should just be about the athletes hitting a personal goal. Medals are nice, but everybody can’t get first place. We all interact together as a management team. We do things together. I mean, we have one bowling alley where everybody goes to the bowl.
We act as a family; as a committee… It’s a safe space and you’re not judged. It’s a judgement-free zone. I care about all the athletes. If you know someone isn’t at practice, we wonder where they are and if they’re OK. Caring about the athletes keeps me there. If I’m not there, then the athletes ask my dad or my mom where I am. It’s the way everybody seems to care about everybody that draws me in.
For me, my favorite Special Olympics Pennsylvania memory is when my Unified Partner Byron and I went the 2022 National Games in Florida, and we got fourth place in bowling and first place in four-person team bowling… As the four-person team, we were on the podium. The whole National Games experience was just a lot of fun. We went to Animal Kingdom, and they kicked everyone out except Special Olympics! We got free ice cream, free almost everything!
If you’re interested in volunteering, just do it. There are so many opportunities. Even after volunteering at one-day events, you’re not going to not volunteer, you’re always going to come back. Once you interact with the athletes, it’s hard not to care.
Volunteering is fun! You’ll never regret it. It can lead to other opportunities that you didn’t think were possible. I mean, everybody always talks about my dad. My dad has been to five or six World Games, a few National Games and they are places you would never think you would get to go to. SOPA is a great organization to be involved in because they care about aspects of life and people in your life that are sometimes forgotten.
I don’t have any relatives that have an intellectual disability. That’s always a question I get asked. Another question I get asked is, ‘To volunteer, do you have to have a family member with an intellectual disability?’ The answer is, no! Anybody can volunteer! We always need volunteers.
If you have something to offer, athletes love to interact with you and take what you’re willing to teach them.
